RT Journal Article
T1 Woody plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity decrease along elevational gradients in Andean tropical montane forests: Environmental filtering and arrival of temperate taxa
A1 Bañares de Dios, Guillermo
A1 Macía, Manuel J.
A1 Arellano, Gabriel
A1 Granzow de la Cerda, Íñigo
A1 Vega Álvarez, Julia
A1 Arnelas Seco, Itziar
A1 Espinosa, Carlos I.
A1 Salinas, Norma
A1 Cayuela, Luis
AB Mountains are paramount for exploring biodiversity patterns due to the mosaic of topographies and climates encompassed over short distances. Biodiversity research has traditionally focused on taxonomic diversity when investigating changes along elevational gradients, but other facets should be considered. For first time, we simultaneously assessed elevational trends in taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity of woody plants in Andean tropical montane forests and explored their underlying ecological and evolutionary causes. This investigation covered four transects (traversing ca. 2200 m a.s.l.) encompassing 114 plots of 0.1 ha across a broad latitudinal range (ca. 10°). Using Hill numbers to quantify abundance-based diversity among 37,869 individuals we observed a consistent decrease in taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity as elevation increased, although the decrease was less pronounced for higher Hill orders. The exception was a slight increase in phylogenetic diversity when dominant species were over-weighted. The decrease in taxonomic and functional diversity might be attributed to an environmental filtering process towards highlands, where the increasingly harsher conditions exclude species and functional strategies. Besides, the differences in steepness decrease between Hill orders suggest that rare species disproportionately contribute to functional diversity. For phylogenetic diversity the shifting elevational trend between Hill orders indicates a greater than previously considered influence in central Andean highlands of tropical lowlands originated species with strong niche conservatism relative to distantly related temperate lineages. This could be explained by a decreasing presence and abundance of temperate, extratropical taxa towards the central Andes relative to northern or southern Andes, where they are more prevalent.
PB Elsevier
SN 2096-2703
YR 2024
FD 2024-07
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/118219
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/118219
LA eng
NO Bañares-de-Dios, G., Macía, M. J., Arellano, G., Granzow-de la Cerda, Í., Vega-Álvarez, J., Arnelas, I., Espinosa, C. I., Salinas, N., & Cayuela, L. (2024). Woody plant taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity decrease along elevational gradients in Andean tropical montane forests: Environmental filtering and arrival of temperate taxa. Plant Diversity, 46(4), 491-501. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.PLD.2024.03.005
NO Guillermo Bañares was funded through grants from the Spanish Ministry of Education (FPU14/05303), Escuela Internacional de Doctorado - Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Doctor Internacional 2017) and the Education and Research Department of Madrid Autonomous Region Government (REMEDINAL TE; S2018/EMT-4338). The study was supported through three grants from the Spanish Ministries of Economy and Competitiveness and Science and Technology (CGL2013-45634-P, CGL2016-75414-P, and PID2019-105064 GB-I00), and a grant from Centro de Estudios de América Latina (CEAL) at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Banco Santander.
NO Ministerio de Educación (España)
NO Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
NO Comunidad de Madrid
NO Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)
NO Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (España)
NO Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
NO Banco de Santander
DS Docta Complutense
RD 17 abr 2025